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'A God That Could Be Real' In The Scientific Universe

At first glance, this article caught my attention – here's a well-respected organization writing seriously about God and science in the 21st century. As someone who is both a person of faith and a critical thinker, this looked interesting as it popped up in my Flipboard reading this morning. However, it reads as something totally disconnected from real people of faith and really isn't all the different than normal skepticism about God.

Let's start with the premise:

Does God have to be part of our understanding of the universe? No. But if scientists tell the public that they have to choose between God and science, most people will choose God, which leads to denialism, hostility to science, and the profoundly dangerous mental incoherence in modern society that fosters depression and conflict.

That's simply a stereotype and not true. I live in one of the poorest areas of the U.S., with one of its most religious populations, and people simply do not feel that it's either God or science. What people of faith resist is the notion that science has to define God, that we cannot know God if we cannot know Him through scientific evidence.

Unfortunately, this is the exact goal of this author, to redefine God as something understood scientifically.

What if we thought this way about God? What if we took the evidence of a new cosmic reality seriously and became willing to rule out the impossible? What would be left?

We can have a real God if we let go of what makes it unreal.

The author goes on to say "I am only interested in God if it’s real," and by "real" she's means in the physical, natural sense of the word. For me, I'm only interested in God if He's more than that, which I think is where most people of faith sit.

I also don't share this author's fatalism. I feel certain we can live in a world where we disagree on whether or not there is a God without ending up in some depressed and hostile environment. Both people of faith and scientists are much bigger than this article gives them credit for being.